Educasting from Ireland

OpenEir Loosely Joined

CLONMEL -- Just a quick note to myself as a reminder that the Tipperary Institute Skunkworks this summer will formulate a third year ICT project related to OpenEir, paving the way for a third year project on a map mosaic of the 8W confluence in Ireland. This longitude is closest to on-going work GPS mapping already in progress.

The act of invoicing

TIPPINST -- We are exploring ways to give 24-hour legs to our recent acquistion of Acrobat 7 Professional. When we use taxpayer funding to purchase commercial items like the €240 upgrade to Acrobat Writer, we must leverage the purchase to ensure it has the greatest utility. This best practise imperative caused us to convert selected project tracking documents from Word format to Acrobat format. Students can make comments on the Acrobat documents using Adobe Reader. They don't need Acrobat Writer.

TippSnaps Update 0412

CLONMEL -- Lahra Prendergast's TippSnaps project is getting to a point where the first thematic content will be available for public consumption. It looks like it will be a series of Christmas photographs designed to be syndicated through Flickr.

Recycling Project

CLONMEL -- Both Tom Heffernan and Eanna McAteer are doing multimedia projects related to recycling. Part of the project will result in a stream of information about reusing paper products.

Wiki best practise

TAINT -- Justin Mason offers excellent ideas on turning a stale project site into a wiki. In fact, his ideas should be read by everyone using a wiki. His most important tip: "if you already have a mailing list with the knowledgeable part of the community on it, use that list -- because they're the ones who'll be able to recognise if erroneous info is put up, and will be annoyed about this enough to bother fixing it." His tips "migrate aspects of your already-existing and already-working community into this new outlet." Mason's wiki is "the most reliable source of info about SpamAssassin, and is extensive and up-to-date."

It's my code

WIRED -- Linus Torvalds is making his kernel developers certify that the code they submit for the kernel is their own work. This is a big step forward towards ensuring Linux remains uncontested by companies with claims to Unix.

Boombox Project

WIRED -- One of the most useful devices that is not on campus is a download kiosk. That would be a place where laptop users could log in and snag course notes, MP3s and photos. NYU students Ahmi Wolf and Mark Argo built such a "Bass Station" system.

The pair ripped open an old Lasonic TRC-931 boom box and retrofitted it with a 30 GB hard drive, Linux and Wi-Fi. It can blast music and simultaneously serve files to Wi-Fi laptops. Beecause the hotspot is completely open, listeners can also post tracks to the Bass Station and move them to the top of the playlist.

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Brian Lam -- "The Hub of the Party" in Wired Play, May 2004.
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